I think my mum has borderline personality disorder - What should I do?

[mentalhealth323]

My mum has always been unstable - I think she had therapy as a child (she's now 60) and I know she's always raised eyebrows for her mental state - she supposedly had a mental 'breakdown' for around six years when I was a kid, had therapy and medication.

The last year she has fallen back down the hole of out-of-touch-of-reality.

"when I came over last week you had three cups of tea and I was never offered one!" - 'Mum, I went down to the shop while you was over especially to get you sugar for you tea - what are you talking about? You had plenty of drinks and we offered you dinner?'

She's also got it in her head that my partner is having an affair/abusive/brainwashing me as she's been on his Facebook and it doesn't say he's in a relationship with me - this has been on repeat when i've spoke to her for the past month (it says we're not in a relationship because until recently we were working together).

She has no ability for compassion, i've never seen her have a normal conversation either. Growing up she never had any friends just a couple of neighbours that she'd put pressure on to hang out with.

Over the years she's been sacked from a few jobs due to 'personality differences' and she's not able to hold one out. She's just permanently living in another world, everything is negative and everyone must be out to get her.

It must be horrible for her as she's miserable (even on depression tablets), but its horrible for everyone else around her. She's obviously not just depressed, i'm not sure if she has asperges/BPD/Bipolar but I feel like she needs proper help. I'm not sure what to do as I can't cope with her, I dread my phone going off, I hate that she pretends my partner is abusing me and telling the rest of the family etc.

I'm not sure why these symptoms would lead you suspect BPD specifically? Being out of touch with reality would only be a potentially very fleeting issue at times of very high stress, and not a typical issue with BPD. Not feeling compassion has nothing at all to do with BPD, not the inability to have normal conversations. I suppose some might argue the more histionic of the BPD might make up stories of people being abused or whatever, it also doesn't sound like anything to do with the diagnosis itself.

Ah, sorry about the bad grammar above. Anyway. here is a list of the diagnostic criteria for BPD. I don't really see what you're describing as anything to do with the longer term mood swings of bipolar disorder. Obviously you've only just written a few snippets there, so you might have a broader picture you're looking at yourself.

Either way, I'd try to refrain from armchair diagnosing her, tbh. If you feel she needs mental health help, the ideal first case would be to talk to her and see if she's open to talking about it to someone. You can also ask to speak to her GP and express your worries. If it turns out your mum doesn't want any help and her GP doesn't think she's so unwell she needs help forced upon, there's very little you can do. If you feel upto it, you can try to be understanding and supportive and nudge towards good things, but if you feel that's futile, it might be better to focus on setting healthy boundaries for yourself.